In Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography, chapter 15 is dedicated to Liverpool. Entitled “A Great Tradition”, it charts their travails during the majority of the Scot’s reign at Old Trafford. The opening line reads: “From adversity, the real illustrious clubs return to their cycle of winning.” The words, and the widely held belief behind them, provide crumbs of comfort to a generation of Manchester United fans discovering what it is like when the FA Cup represents their only realistic chance of success before the kids have gone back to school.

These are strange and depressing times for United. Finishing seventh in the Premier League last season, when David Moyes looked like a man out of his depth, was supposed to be the nadir, but Tuesday’s Capital One Cup defeat against Milton Keynes Dons plumbed new depths and, allied to the opening two Premier League performances, suggested that the fault lines running through Old Trafford are deeper than first thought. But are we really witnessing the end of United’s empire?

History is full of lessons about former champions that lost their way and slipped into mediocrity but, even allowing for the alarming nature of United’s decline since Ferguson called it a day, there is little reason to suspect that we are looking at a club unable to navigate a way back.

This, after all, is the club with the biggest attendances in the country, the highest income – a staggering £422m according to the last set of accounts (admittedly there is a significant amount of debt to service) – a record number of domestic titles and the ability to smash the British transfer record when there is no Champions League football on the horizon. None of that guarantees success but it certainly helps.

Indeed, the big question is arguably not whether United will return to football’s top table, but just how long it will take, which is pretty much the point that Ferguson was making about Liverpool, when he wrote about the “tremor of dread” that he felt when Gérard Houllier won three cups at Anfield in 2001 – even if that proved to be a false dawn.

Early last season Alan Hansen drew parallels between the ageing Liverpool team that he was part of when they last won the title in 1990 and the United side that Moyes inherited from Ferguson, and it is easy to see why. United, much like Liverpool, were slow in recognising the need to rebuild and strengthen, leaving them playing a game of catch-up when they tried to do so after they had relinquished their crown. It was too late, the signings were not good enough and the damage was done.

There are, of course, other title winners who have never scaled those heights again, but with all due respect to Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa, both of whom won the European Cup (twice in the case of Brian Clough’s side) as well as domestic titles in the late 70s and early 80s, there is no comparison with United’s situation now. Further back, Leeds in the 1970s, and United in the wake of Sir Matt Busby’s departure at the end of the 1960s, also went through periods of decline after being the dominant force in the English game, but it is hard to contrast one era with another when the financial landscape has changed beyond all recognition.

That said, the end of Liverpool’s hegemony across the 1980s remains probably the best example of how a team can be routinely winning trophies and league titles one minute and, to borrow Ferguson’s famous description, knocked off their perch the next. For those that grew up watching football during those years, it was almost impossible to imagine Liverpool going a few seasons without parading the championship, never mind close to quarter of a century.

United, it is worth remembering, won the Premier League as recently as last year, so it is a little early to be condemning them to decades lagging behind others. At the same time, there is no doubt that there are grounds for concern, whether that be in the boardroom, on the pitch or in the dugout, where Louis van Gaal has his work cut out. The solution at the moment seems to be to spend, with no obvious strategy behind the best part of £200m that has been splurged in the past 12 months.

All the while, United’s rivals – if that word is still appropriate – continue to press on, whether that be making early statements in the title race or flying into Monaco, where the leading clubs in Europe will gather on Thursday afternoon for the Champions League group stage draw. United will be conspicuous by their absence, stuck at home mulling over a 4-0 defeat to a League One club while preparing for an awkward trip to Turf Moor. It feels like a long way back.